Digital Humanities Showcase brings visibility to humanities research
Nearly four dozen humanities students presented their research to the community at the Spring Digital Humanities Showcase
By Ally O’Connor ’20
At the end of the 2018-2019 academic year, students and professors from a variety of departments gathered in the Archives and Special Collections section of the library for the Digital Humanities Showcase, put on by Santa Clara University’s Digital Humanities Working Group. The showcase featured digital exhibits, Virtual Reality (VR), and video projects, all of which were created using digital tools to conduct humanities research.
According to Assistant Professor Amy Lueck (English), “Digital Humanities is an umbrella term for any work that brings humanities questions to bear on technology, or uses technology to explore humanities questions. It takes a lot of forms on this campus and elsewhere.” Moreover, Lueck explains that "One of the big values I see in this work is helping English (and other) students see the connections between the language work they do and the technologies that are pervasive elsewhere in our lives and careers, and to find productive, human-centered intersections between them.”
The approximately 50 students who participated in the Spring Digital Humanities Showcase, hailing from the Anthropology, Communication, English, and Modern Languages departments, had the opportunity to share their work with the university and community. Interestingly, many of the projects presented used materials from SCU’s Archives and Special Collections, thereby making those resources available to the public.
When asked about Digital Humanities moving forward at the University, Lueck shares that over the past several years, more and more faculty are connecting around their interest in this work, and are gaining momentum and visibility. “As one of the faculty members involved in this effort,” she says, “I am interested in expanding our definition and helping more faculty identify the ways they do or could engage with Digital Humanities principles, [as well as encouraging them to see] themselves as part of this growing community.”